


Butterfly Roads

by Ampera, meet_me_beyond (Ampera)



Category: Soul Cartel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Blood, Dark, Death, F/M, Horses, M/M, because horses are adorable and precious, but im happy, i didnt even know you could write about a series that didnt already exist on here, their names are spelled differently on different websites and i am confusion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2019-10-16 15:34:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17552345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ampera/pseuds/Ampera, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ampera/pseuds/meet_me_beyond
Summary: Mephistopheles is distant, cold, and revered as much for his beauty as he is for his cruelty.ShiHoon is one of the many prisoners that are thrown into the castle dungeons after the initial capture, and one human the guards soon start to refer to as"unbreakable".orMephisto is a war lord in a fantasy-ish AU, and ShiHoon is too thickheaded for his own good(think mephisto dressed in all-black armor, cerberos as a black stallion with glowing red eyes, and shihoon as an albino who hides his true hair color)





	1. Barrenwater Capture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we've kicked off!
> 
> Enjoy a somewhat decently written Soul Cartel story with its own plotline, and some new characters to come, brought to you by yours truly.
> 
> In between writing new chapters, I might just be publishing some one-shots I've already written or am currently working on, also Soul Cartel. Because this. fanbase. needs. more. stories.  
> (And because I consider myself an okay enough writer to dare post things)
> 
> UPDATED CHAPTER BITCHES! enjoy! *hugs and smoochies*

*

**butterfly roads**

_ch. I, barrenwater capture_

  
  
They discover him just five minutes away from the forest road that leads to Barrenwater Crossing.

And ShiHoon, because _apparently_ he must've lost his brain out in the wilderness at some point before this, actually tries to fight off the attackers during the first minute.

  
His senses pick up on the shift in the air, and he throws himself back just as the first arrow goes sailing by an inch from his arm.  
A soldier dressed in sleek black armor tears out from the dark trees, and ShiHoon dodges a zing of gleaming metal aimed at his gut before lashing out with a punch, sending the attacker skidding back.

  
"Shit," he mutters under his breath. His mind is sluggish from a continous lack of sleep, and his body aches with every jerky movement even as more soldies come pouring out from the darkness.

  
So he does the only thing he can, swallowing the stubborn pride resting in his spine.

  
He makes a run for it. Throws himself backwards into the opposite treeline and tries to think of all the ways Noona taught him for losing pursuers as he bolts in a random direction, what little reserves of power he's regained coursing through his legs and feeding him speed.  
He hears them close behind, picks up the direction of a blood-tinged wind, and just as he comes out from the cluster of trees the second arrow pierces him through the leg.

  
_Thump._

  
The pained cry is torn from his throat just before his teeth break the skin of his lip, and ShiHoon goes falling helplessly. A nearly immediate haze falls over his mind even as he hits the muddy ground, and he realizes distantly that the arrow must have been tipped in some sort of paralytic poison.

  
His blood soaks into the barren grass, and ShiHoon stares at what little of it he can see under the fall of his hair. Everything is blurring.

  
_Thump-_

  
"-at should we do with him?" His unmoving body is wrenched upright by a gloved grip on his collar, and a fall of black hair shadows a sinister, sharp-toothed grin. His arms are yanked up, and metal binds are secured around his wrists tight enough to make his skin turn white.

  
ShiHoon glares right up at his distorted silhouette, and the demon laughs. Anger is like a sharp spike in his gut, and the metallic taste of blood fresh on his tongue really isn't helping when it's the only sensation clear to him.

_Ten._

 

"Looks like we caught ourselves a little spitfire," he says, voice rough and like water in his ears. ShiHoon wishes his arms were working so he could strangle the fucker. "Should we bring him back with the other prisoners?"

  
He turns over his shoulder, yelling, "Boss! Are we heading straight back to camp?"

  
ShiHoon hears what sounds like a man grunting in annoyance, and then the echo of hooves nearing them. He looks up, retort ready if sluggish on his tongue, only for it to get stuck when he comes eye-to-eye with the biggest horse he's ever seen, dressed in armor the color of ink.

  
His power of regeneration begins to sipper through the cracks, and as his vision slowly, slowly grows clearer he can make out the shimmer of jewels against a dark backdrop.

 

_Twenty-_

Glowing midnight eyes stare down at him, and the ebony stallion blows hot air right into ShiHoon's face before the reins snap sharply. The horse rears its head back, turning impatiently on the spot with a long tail whipping, and then ShiHoon registers red before anything else.

  
_Long_ , flowing hair the shade of blood, and then a narrowed gaze framed by black markings and heavy lashes brushing against pale cheekbones.

  
"So," the gorgeous specimen of the male gender says, a threat in his voice that he doesn't bother to conceal. "What seems to be the problem, Cairo?"

  
The black-haired demon points ShiHoon right in the face, unmindful of the shift in the air. He regains the feeling in his oddly bent left arm, and it snaps back with a nearly soundless crack. "Him. We're deciding whether or not he goes with the other prisoners, since _somebody_ -"

 

_Thirty-_

 

ShiHoon watches him shoot another demon a dirty look and get one right back- "Decided it would be a good idea to nail him in the leg with a paralytic arrow.. He won't be able to walk for at least another four hours."

 

_Forty-_

 

  
The pretty asshole literally sitting on his high horse hums like he finds that interesting but ultimately trivial information, and ShiHoon tries to make sure his muddled expression projects that in perfect clarity when their eyes lock.

  
"Nothing to say?" He asks softly, expecting no answer since ShiHoon is drugged enough for his tongue to twist every time he opens his dumb mouth.

Said dumb mouth moves on its own, and at times like these he wonders if Noona's got the right idea when she tries to beat the stupid right out of his head.

  
"..I've.. got a couple insults- I think will fit you and your walking circus just _splendidly_ ," ShiHoon glowers, eyebrows narrowing in satisfaction when they grow wary at his eventual lack of slur.

  
"Like Fuckbrain over there, with the creepy leering grin and complete disregard for personal space."

  
The demon in question, who is apparantly named Cairo, hisses at him like a snake ready to pounce on its prey. ShiHoon schools his expression into the one he uses to annoy his sister, the one that always makes her lunge for his neck, and drawls, "Yeah. I'm talking to _you_."

  
When he realizes the entire soldier gathering has gone silent, expressions owlish and eyes bugging out of their heads, ShiHoon looks up at their obvious leader again, quirking an eyebrow.  
"Other than that, and _why the fuck did you capture me by shooting me with a poisoned arrow_ , I'm good."

 

_Fifty._

 

And like that, ShiHoon's mouth curls into a mischievous grin. The power of regeneration pulses through his veins, lava travelling under his skin, and the paralytic toxin evaporates from his body just as he tears the steel binds holding his hands together like rice paper.

  
Fuckbrain, because that is his name now and ShiHoon will stick to it, like a _parasite_ , rushes forward immediately, and ShiHoon moves. He ducks under an overly confident swing, twists the extended arm back and elbow-slams him into the ground hard enough to make it crack on impact.

  
"..I'm not in a hurry, really," he breathes, stepping away from the demon who is foaming at the mouth. "But if I'm going with you, hands to yourselves or you'll start losing them."

They all know he's not going anywhere without a fight.

  
The blood-haired man is watching him in a mixture of irritation and unabashed curiousity, and ShiHoon tries to keep up the facade that he can still move unhindered. The forced flush of his system takes a toll on the body, every system speeding up in overdrive, the exact reason why he never does it unless he _absolutely_ has to, but-

  
He has two minutes, at most.

  
That'll have to do.

  
-But the problem is that he never even senses the air moving around him, his brain too tired, not until it's too late.

  
He feels a sharp blow connect with the pressure point on his neck, muscles locking and turning his body to jelly. The cold ground nears in a dizzying rush, and the last thing he registers before everything goes dark is the billowing fall of red hair in the wind.

  
And god _damnit_ , but it's always the pretty ones.

 

*

_barrenwater capture_

 

"We'll take him back to the dungeons, same as the others."

  
The boy's unconscious form tumbles to the ground, leaving Jahart to haul him up and onto his back with an irritated mumble.

  
Mephisto swipes a long part of hair over his shoulder, and in three long strides he's reached his horse again, grabbing the black reins and heaving himself up. Cerberos moves impatiently when he settles in the saddle, and Mephisto runs a gloved hand down his neck.  
"Cairo, Jahart. Notify the others." Cerberos neighs when he snaps the reins sharply, every strong muscle tensing under the weight of black-glinting armor. "We depart for Dannamore in ten minutes."

  
Cairo grins, like he isn't gingerly massaging the bruised skin on his side where Mephisto could hear the boy almost crack a bone.

  
"Got it, boss," he singsongs, and saunters off to do what Mephisto is quite certain he'll do; pester Jahart and Gabre both until they try to behead him with his own sword again. Not that that worked last time, or the time before that.

  
Mephisto rolls his eyes, and then digs his heel into Cerberos' side, reins loosening. The large war horse neighs, easing into a quick trot across the barren earth, and Mephisto looks out over the forest.  
The air is turning humid, rumbling clouds gathering above their heads. A quiet sigh slips from his lips.

  
"Cairo!" He calls across the field, and hears an answering holler in tandem with metal zinging through the air at dangerous speeds.  
"I'm going ahead. I expect a full report delivered to my office tomorrow by sunrise!"

  
There is no way he's getting caught in the rain out in the middle of nowhere.

  
Mephisto snaps the bridle, and Cerberos rears back on strong hind legs before he leaps forward and into motion.  
The dust tears up under metal-lined hooves, and as they gain speed until the world is blurring around them, Mephisto allows the tight expression on his face to be smoothed out.

  
He leans low as they jump over a protruding rock formation, and the wind tears at his hair, nips at his abnormally warm flesh- Mephisto lives through every second of it, the sensation of a brief freedom soaring up as the large creature under his weight rips across land the color of ashes.

  
It's a thrilling feeling.

  
"Those bird-brains can haul the prisoners themselves," he mutters, and Cerberos, who at times Mephisto wonders if he can't understand their language just as well as any other intelligent being, kicks up the speed another notch.

  
The dungeons are dark, isolated and cruel. Mephisto has no remorse to hide behind and less problem admitting it, because he does not care for the lives of those to oppose him and his reign. Cairo always has a field day down there with the the toughest of prisoners, and more often than not they come out of it somewhat less sane, begging to be killed, to be relieved.

  
Ones like the brown-haired youngster they captured always break the fastest, and a dark expression snakes through his facade before it's gone again. Even if Mephisto has to break him with his own two hands, he will break apart, one piece at a time until there is nothing left.

  
"Cerberos! Go!" He calls out, a snap of the reins ripping a crazed sound from the horse's lungs.

  
The dark palace is towering up before them, every shadowed corner of black marble and rock glinting when one catches sight of them from the right angle.

  
He's itching for a good fight.

*


	2. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ShiHoon comes to in the lord's dungeons, with a pounding headache, and soon deduces that while Fuckbrain may have many talents, singing is not among them.

*

**butterfly roads**

_ch. II, awakening_

 

Slowly, ever so slowly, ShiHoon blinks open his eyes in a dim, unknown place, to the mother of all headaches resting just below his right brow bone, a faint, dull ache in his arms that he can't quite think of a possible cause of, and-  
  
Lastly, the incredibly loud, even more off-key chorus to a well-known festival song that drifts in through wide-gapped iron bars. .. _A prison cell?_ ShiHoon blinks again, and when he tries to move, he finally realizes why the pain in his arms is so muted, and why they feel so disconnected from the rest of his body.  
  
_God, somebody make that singing monkey stop-_  
  
He shifts again, and the heavy, iron binds holding his wrists above his head move with him, clanging loudly and making everything ring in his ears.  
  
The singing cuts off abruptly, and ShiHoon has a single, not-quite-lucid moment to praise whatever deity is out there, before a tall, broad-shouldered figure comes strolling around the corner.  
  
"Oh, you're awake already?" A gruff, disturbingly cheerful voice singsongs, and ShiHoon struggles to open his eyes enough to make out a face. When he finally does, everything comes washing down over his head like a particularily stubborn wave that isn't quite ready to go back into the ocean.  
  
Fuckbrain beams at him, and ShiHoon hasn't been awake two minutes and he already feels the tempting urge to punch the idiot's lights out.  
  
Not that he could even if he somehow, against the odds, managed to break free from the thick iron restraints holding him up. He's exhausted, every limb like a bag filled up with sand, and if the binds were to be unlocked, he'd probably just melt into a puddle of a hundred sixty pounds, pissed half-human on the dirty stone floor.  
  
It probably says a lot about ShiHoon that he's somewhat used to being locked up or restrained. There was that one time when his sister hung him from the courtyard tree by his feet, but he tries not to think about those years too much.  
His vision had been blurry for the remainder of a week.  
  
"..The fuck am I?" His tongue tries to move in directions he hadn't even thought of trying to direct it, and the pounding that has by now moved to his left eye just gets worse, but eventually, ShiHoon manages to get the words out.  
  
_Because where the hell is he?_  
  
"Oh, you're in the boss' prison dungeons," Fuckbrain chirps, fiddling with what may or may not be a smaller meat hook, and while his tone of voice is still that odd mix between insane and completely, utterly overjoyed, his black eyes glint dangerously when he shifts under the bleak lights from the ceiling.  
  
ShiHoon clicks his tongue. "And when will I be let out?" He inquires, and though his wording is polite, Fuckbrain's ears seem to practically twitch at the venom in his voice, the demon's grin somehow gaining an a few extra teeth.  
  
"You won't," the demon replies idly, "Or, at least not until I say so- because Mephistopheles may be the lord of this kingdom, but down here?" His eyes flicker up at something ShiHoon can't see, his view blocked by the carved overhang just beyond the iron bars. "Down in the dungeons, I make the rules."  
  
"And break them, when necessary," he adds a beat later, like it's something ShiHoon had best remember. The glance he directs at the iron restraints drilled deep into the wall tells ShiHoon that it was a hundred percent intended that way.  
  
ShiHoon closes his eyes again, head falling back against the cold wall with a dull thump, and contemplates his options. Since it looks like he's truly stuck down here until Fuckbrain decides otherwise, his best bet would be to somehow gain enough of the demon's trust to be let out.  
  
Maybe on a walk. He suddenly wants to maim something again. ShiHoon feels like a dog, like he's the pretty demon lord's pet until deemed otherwise.  
  
Still, a particular fact sits stubbornly on the tip of ShiHoon's tongue, and since he has nothing else to do or look at in particular, except Fuckbrain, but that sounds about as inviting as shoving his fist down his own throat, ShiHoon voices it without a second thought to consequence.  
  
"You sing horribly," he deadpans, and Fuckbrain pauses mid-rummage through a box of some sort, the heavy wooden lid held in place by rusty hinges and leaned back against the wall outside in the walkway.  
  
"Like, I'd only been awake for like, thirty seconds, and I already wanted to knock myself right back out."  
  
Something tells ShiHoon he should probably shut up now, but- oh fuck it. He's got nothing better to do with his time. Might as well insult his jailor for all he's worth.  
  
"You know, Fuckbrain, the image I got in my head when I heard you belt out the chorus to Dancing 'Round the Merry Berry Bush, it was kind of like- I saw a monkey, hanging upside down with a tiara, singing to his heart's content."  
  
ShiHoon closes his mouth, and everything is silent.  
  
Then, Fuckbrain laughs. It's a low, hoarse sound, and sounds oddly like somebody whistling in the background of running water, but ShiHoon's hairs stand on end anyways.  
  
"I knew I liked your spunk," the ebony-haired demon says once his amusement seems to have died down, and ShiHoon pauses at the change in his tone.  
  
The demon suddenly swings open the gate to his cell, and ShiHoon perks up, adrenaline kicking off at the start line to a marathon when his nose catches the weak scent of smoke.  
  
ShiHoon's eyes catch on the glowing iron spear in Fuckbrain's grip, black claws a stark contrast against the metal as the demon steps further into his cell, away from the light and into the darkness.  
  
It looks like the shadows are moving, stirring uneasily for every, slow step of leather boots against smooth-polished stone.  
  
"Let's see how long that fire can last before you give in," the demon rasps, lips curling up in a smile that shows rows of razor-sharp, deadly fangs, and ShiHoon's mouth snaps shut.

 

*

 

Every wound aches, the blood trickling leisurely from the cuts trailing down the expanses of his torso and cutting jagged shapes into the tender skin above his hipbones.  
  
ShiHoon's vision is bleary, lungs feeling too small when he pulls in air and then too big the moment after, but he hangs on stubbornly, refusing to let the darkness take over and send him into a deep, deep sleep.

Three hours, he wants to say, maybe even congratulate himself for hanging on since he started counting the seconds, minutes and hours to distract himself from the metal slicing through his flesh.  
  
"I gotta say, Spark," the demon in front of him growls roughly, the grin ever-present on his sharp face as pitch-black eyes drag across every injury he has inflicted, both with his fire-heated spear and the knives he'd pulled from sheaths fastened on his hips at some point during the first hour's last minutes.  
  
_Spark_. ShiHoon hates the new-found nickname with a vengeance, even if he is slightly, disturbingly proud of its origins.  
  
"You sure are one tough human."  
  
"Half-" ShiHoon rasps, eyes fluttering open wider as he forces his head up enough from where he fell forward, meeting heartless eyes head-on as best he can, whatever energy still coursing through his system slipping away fast. "- _Half_ -human- y' fucker."  
  
Fuckbrain cackles. "One tough human, indeed," he repeats again, sounding more like he's talking to himself than ShiHoon, and ShiHoon's head falls back down, dirt-matted hair falling in tousles over his forehead and into his eyes, his lip bleeding from where it had been split by a punch that almost broke his jaw in the process.  
  
The demon shifts, throwing the blood-painted spear to the ground with a clang, the metal dark silver where it had been a bright, glowing orange from the fire only an hour prior. "I think we'll leave it here for today," Fuckbrain chirps, and God, how ShiHoon _despises_ him, with every fibre of his being that is still alive and conscious.  
  
"Wouldn't want you bleeding out and dying on me- the fun has only just started, after all."  
  
The second the cell door slams shut, the sturdy bolt lock being slid back into place and being smeared with half-dried blood by clawed hands, ShiHoon slips away from reality, and into a beckoning, welcoming darkness.

*

 

Far beyond castle walls and deep rivers, where the land changes from the dead barren ground and transitions to lush forests, there is an uneasy stir deep under the earth. The trees quiver, and the forest's inhabitants pause as if frozen in time, eyes flickering up to where the sky peeks through in gaps in the green leaves.

  
In pitch-black darkness, with only the running water to puncture an eerie silence, glowing green eyes blink open and cast a weak light on a tail lined with dark, sharp-edged scales.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psst! fanart may or may not be coming soon ohohoh ^o^

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't already read Soul Cartel, then please do, because it's one of the most amazing webtoons I've ever come across as well as one of the most underrated.
> 
> -


End file.
